Thread: Getting cheap coins slabbed.

Everyone on here says don't pay $25+ to slab a $5 coin.

But...why do I see SO MANY low value coins in slabs? I mean common pennies, dollar coins, etc. With a value of about $5 tops.

Someone paid $25+ to slab a $5 coin... why?

It's not like someone screwed up and made a mistake, I see literally hundreds of $3-$15 coins in slabs.

Because dealer's get special deals to slab coins as BU or UNC...Then re-sell later to idiots on the 'bay.

Or they submitted the coin hoping for a higher grade and got a lower one than expecting.

Originally Posted by Animosity

Or they submitted the coin hoping for a higher grade and got a lower one than expecting.

I wondered that myself and got this answer some time ago here on CT.

This is why there are slabbed PF69DCAM US coins on eBay offered for $5 while the price guide says they should be $25. Seller just hoped they`ll be 70 and now nobody is even close to buy common 69s for anything above $6-7.

true i've bought tons of PR69 DCAM state quarters on the net for less than the price slabbing them....i always wondered why they bothered to send them in but since i have never sent a coin in myself i just guessed that they either got good deals by sending a bunch of coins in or they were hoping for a 70 instead of a 69.......how cheap can you get a coin slabbed by say PCGS if you send them in bulk?

I know of two IHC collectors in my area that had put together a grade set of PCGS slabbed Indians. They wanted an in-hand grading guide for future use. Expensive but it does sort of make sense.

Originally Posted by Hunt1

Because dealer's get special deals to slab coins as BU or UNC...Then re-sell later to idiots on the 'bay.

Then I guess I'm an idiot since I buy slabbed MS/PF69 Roosies off eBay and, not only that, am extraordinarily happy with and proud of my collection.

As bonbonbelly noted one reason is to assemble a grading set. I am working on such a set for two cent pieces. I just used a free certificate to have several lower grade coins slabbed. The grades were 3, 4, 6, and 12. Just what I needed. I see it as a great educational exercise, and will do talks at coin clubs and perhaps even an exhibit at a coin show.

Maybe Thoreau is right: "Men have become the tool of their tools."
A.few years ago a national sent me a PF69 Massachusetts quarter (NGC) that I
won on ebay and paid for with paypal. What a country. I left ebay long before then because I refuse to use papal. I'm guessing I was suppose to call them so I could be offered a once in a lifetime chance to buy
the PF70 version. Oooh, oooh oooh can I get the coffee bean too?

Let's take that state quarter example. The price guide says the PF-69 is a $25 coin. What is a PF70 worth? What happens is a dealer preselects a few hundred that he thinks have a chance at getting that 70 and submits them. Now since he is submitting several hundred of the same date mint and type he gets a deal of only say $6 each for the slabbing. Say 5 to 10% get the 70 grade. Those coins pay for the entire submission. The dealer has now broken even and he still has 90% of the coins and say they are split 75% PF 69 and 25% PF 68. But it is going to take forever to sell of a couple hundred PF 69's at $25 each and his money is tied up. Since the 70's means he now has nothing in them he blows them out a $5 each. Even selling them well below the guide price, and at less that the slabbing fee, he still clears $500 to $1k

Conder is exactly right. And to those sent in by the dealers you have to add all of the individuals, and there are a LOT of them, who sent in their coins thinking they would be graded higher than they ended up being graded by the TPG.

Quite honestly, most people don't know how to grade. I'd even venture a guess that 95%, or more, of the collectors don't know how to grade. And so they send in coins all the time thinking they are 67s or 68s, or even 69s, and end up getting back 64s and 65s.

Take all of those people, add in the dealers, and that's why you have so many $5 coins in slabs.

Originally Posted by TheCoinGeezer

Then I guess I'm an idiot since I buy slabbed MS/PF69 Roosies off eBay and, not only that, am extraordinarily happy with and proud of my collection.

Originally Posted by Hunt1

Because dealer's get special deals to slab coins as BU or UNC...Then re-sell later to idiots on the 'bay.

Just to add to Conder's point is that if you are looking to get bulk dealer submission status to get those graded by NGC for like $7 (i think it is) you must constantly send in so many I believe a month or year in order to keep that price and status. You also get many paying members who get their free submissions to TPG's and again hope for that 69 grade in an earlier coin and series or a modern 70. Then it means sky is the limit because prices are then determined by not only supply and demand but what that individual is willing and able to pay for the conveived notion of perfection. How else does one pay hundreds of dollars for a Shield penny in proof 70?

Granted, dealers can bulk submit a large group at one time and get the individual cost down to well less than $10 each. However, I don't think that that is how so many worthless (or almost so) coins are showing up in slabs. It starts with GDJMSP's statement that very few people know how to grade (or even close). And then, these same nongraders are duped into believing that they HAVE to have their coins certified to be worthy of being in a collection.... and that comes partially from bad or ill-gotten advise from some coin websites. Couple that with the visions of sugarplums dancing before their eyes when they see a potentially nice coin ... and then whamo, TPG fever sets in. They look in the "book" and see that their coin (purchased for $80) is worth $200, in spite of the fact that he's actually missed the grade by 3-5 points. Their $200 coin, honestly graded, is now only worth $30 because his grading stinks . Because the "book" that he referenced is a retail guide, the $30 book price can be bought on the open market or Ebay for $10 and he has now already spent $25 to have the bad news readable through plastic. The end result is that the non-grader/newbie is out of pocket $105 (plus postage) for what he thought was a $200 coin and is only worth $10. For dealers and for people who have very valuable collections, or who have heirs that really know nothing about coins or who don't have access to a climate-controlled space, then TPG is the way to go for those few. But way way too many people have been brain-washed into thinking that all coins need to be certified to be "worthy" of being collected. Nothing is further from the truth, but the propaganda that floats around on the coin sites and from the TPG's themselves somehow turns some folk's grey matter to mush, enticing them to throw $25 at $5-$10 coins. And then they keep shooting themselves in the foot because it feels so good .. then only their heirs can see the stupid monetary choices that he has made, once he's looking at the underside of the sod and the wife's trying to resell them after the fact.

Originally Posted by longnine009

Maybe Thoreau is right: "Men have become the tool of their tools."
A.few years ago a national sent me a PF69 Massachusetts quarter (NGC) that I
won on ebay and paid for with paypal. What a country. I left ebay long before then because I refuse to use papal. I'm guessing I was suppose to call them so I could be offered a once in a lifetime chance to buy
the PF70 version. Oooh, oooh oooh can I get the coffee bean too?

I have read this post several times, and I still cant figure out what the heck it means...